Foundering on the Shoals of Massachusetts

It is difficult to overstate the significance of Scott Brown’s victory in the Massachusetts special election of January 19th. He will take a U.S. Senate seat that has been continuously held by Democrats since John F. Kennedy defeated Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. in November of 1952. If Martha Coakley had won that seat, it would have shortly been eligible to retire and collect Social Security.

It has been extremely entertaining this past week watching liberal politicians and pundits struggle to explain their catastrophe. The voters were sexist. No, they were racist. And angry, or maybe fearful, but certainly stupid. What a flattering view the Democrats have of the electorate.

Perhaps it wasn’t the voters, but the candidate, who only portrayed himself as a political outsider. His 30-plus years of Army National Guard service was a red herring that did not truly inform his insight on terrorism. His semi-nude modeling, in 1982 while a college student, was a clear disqualifier of which the voters were clearly (and stupidly) unconcerned.

OK, maybe not the candidate, but the competition. Coakley ran a weak campaign. If she had not won the primary, a stronger candidate (e.g., Representative Michael Capuano) would have assuredly prevailed against Brown.

Democrats consumed a post-election poll sponsored by Moveon.org and concluded that the election was a stinging repudiation of George W. Bush and a ringing endorsement of the Obama agenda. So, not a catastrophe at all, they convinced themselves, but a sign that they had not hewn far enough to the left, and the voters had simply voiced their disapproval thereof.

Barack Obama took that message to heart and, in his interminable State of the Union address, reaffirmed his focus on growing government, taking over the health care system, imposing a massive energy tax, and picked very public fights with Wall Street and the Supreme Court – all intended, of course, to stimulate the creation of private sector jobs.

It is as if the ship of state, with Admiral Obama at the helm, is clawing off a lee shore, rife with crippling shoals and dangerous rocks. The wind and seas are brutal, and suddenly a flare ascends from this Massachusetts shoreline. It is Scott Brown, crying “Tack to starboard, tack now! You are in terrible danger of foundering!” But Obama, in his willful hubris, instead tacks to port.

We can only hope that the November elections will send a clear, unambiguous, unmistakable message that we must take that starboard tack – and that it happens before our hull is pierced and torn. That would be the true catastrophe.


On a Lee Shore
Winslow Homer – 1900
(Note – this image is in the public domain as the creator has been deceased for over 70 years)

Why are Republicans working to make us less safe?

Our local political columnist, spurred by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s quasi-successful Christmas day terrorist attack on Northwest flight 253, relates how Republicans are working hard to make us less safe. “(Democrats)… point out that Republicans have blocked the appointment of the head of the Transportation Security Administration and fought against funding for screening machines at airports.” This theme is reverberating throughout the fever swamps of partisan liberal blogs (Huffington Post, Democratic Underground, etc.).

It is true that Republicans are opposed to the confirmation of Obama’s choice for TSA director, Erroll Southers. This is because Mr. Southers may not continue the current prohibition of TSA collective bargaining. Republicans fear that if TSA employees were to “work to rule”, we would be less able to respond quickly to changing terrorist tactics, hence making us less safe. Republican concern of this eventuality is warranted. On October 20, 2008, candidate Obama wrote to John Gage, President of the American Federation of Government Employees, with the following commitment: “If I am elected President, I will work to ensure that TSOs (Transportation Security Officers) have collective bargaining rights…” This, coupled with Mr. Southers' refusal to answer the collective bargaining question has raised alarms.

The charge that Republicans “fought against funding for screening machines” is misleading and borders on prevarication. How many Republicans -- all of them? A majority? Why are they fighting screening machines? The questions raised here beg for answers, but you will never see them in the liberal blogs or media.

The 110th congress passed H.R.1, “Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007(1)” by a bi-partisan majority on July 27, 2007. A majority of Republican senators (36) voted for the bill, and a small minority (8), against. The bill consists of 183 sections, only one of which relates to airport screening machines (section 1601). The Republicans who voted against the bill did not object to section 1601, but that the overall bill allocated funds based on political calculus (e.g., pork) rather than risk. They also did not feel that the mandate to inspect 100% of incoming ship cargo was feasible, and that it would disrupt the then-present practice of inspecting high-risk cargo, thereby making us less safe.

Now, you may well disagree with the Republicans’ reasoning. But is it possible that, in their best judgment, they are trying to make us more safe, not less so?

(1) This bill was known in the Senate version as Improving America's Security Act of 2007.